If you follow me on Facebook, you’ve seen a brief update on this, but Facebook is an asshole and likes to eat posts and make things impossible to find–an archivist’s worst nightmare really. So, what the heck happened at the house this time? Well, it basically went to shit.
What began as me thinking we had a simple airlock situation (I did investigating and Googling and investigative Googling so clearly I knew what was up, despite knowing fuck all about plumbing) became yet another old house problem that one would think a land owner would address before leasing his property, but no, no. Two days before Thanksgiving, our injector pump died for the lower half of the house.
Roto rooter has been amazing throughout the whole process–if nothing else comes from this, I can highly recommend them for your future plumbing nightmares. They worked from dusk till dawn putting in a new injector pump. The next day, Roto Rooter’s restoration team came and pulled a 14 hour day gutting the house of all things toxic. Waste water seeping out and into my bathroom, my bedroom, and part of the downstairs kitchen (the basement of our house is half in-law, half storage.) resulted in a LOT that had to go. The bathroom is a hole. My bedroom is missing a huge strip of wall, the closet, and the floor has been removed (because someone thought carpet in a basement was a brilliant move). The kitchen now has no sink or counters.
There is a special irony that this whole thing began as no water moving in the basement (bathroom and kitchen water just Stopped without going anywhere, save for into the tub through the drain, and leaking out onto the floor) and has resulted in no running water in the basement as all fixtures for it are gone.
I got lucky in that only a few of my pieces of furniture were hit. Two can be cleaned, because real wood can be salvaged. But I’m out my bed frame, which though I bought on Craigslist for only $75 is apparently a worth a goddamn grand. So that’s fun.
The landlord demanded to put me up in a hotel–I told him that wasn’t happening. I work two jobs from home, and I commute with my roommate to go to Target six days a week. No hotel will put up with my hammering jewelry during holiday rush, and also MY CAT. He insisted I could leave my cat behind.
Clearly this man has never met a cat owner in his life. He assured me the hotel was just for sleeping, obviously I could still live in the rest of the house otherwise. I firmly told him that my cat sleeps with me (she does and yells forever until she finds me at night when I go to bed) and that a hotel would do me no good at all. I told him I wasn’t paying rent until this is resolved, and that at least he agreed on.
I had hopes that I could continue sleeping on the pullout bed with my mattress on top in the basement living room. The contractor came today with good news, bad news. He’s got great ideas to both fix and improve–newer countertops and cabinets made of wood not pressboard, waterproof laminate floor that’ll look just like wood, new tile, all new fixtures. He wants to even try to get the landlord to agree to a Real Ceiling in the basement kitchen/living room, instead of the current drop down ceiling full of mice and possible a squirrel. Downside- its gonna get messy. I’ll need to empty the majority of whats in the basement living room so he has room to work.
And that’s where I’m at now. We haven’t even begun the actual repair work, and already I’m going out of my mind with time I’ve lost to this. Meeting with contractors and working with Roto Rooter and being denied access to my shop work space. The endless noise that came with the two days straight of work being done. I’m behind on everything and it’s eating me up, and all I can do is tell folks whats happening, apologize a lot, offer refunds and otherwise just try to work when I can.
I know that it’s necessary, logically I know this. Emotionally, its draining and exhausting and I’m so angry that this stupid house is impacting my life and damaging it so.
One foot in front of the other, I’m going to make it through this. And when its done, the place I rent will be a little nicer for it.
An Andro Named Sue 